I've been doing a bunch of small stuff on the engine while the weather is still crappy. I got the oil pan, timing cover and water pump assembled and attached. The oil pan and one piece gasket were purchased from BOP. I bought the timing cover used from a member here, and didn't bother to fully inspect it until several months after it arrived. It needed a lot of work! I had to extract a broken bolt, chase all the threads, fix a pinhole on the radiator hose neck and fill in some minor corrosion here and there using jb weld. I figured the time I spent was worth it, as aftermarket covers go for nearly 200.00 and who knows what their long term quality is like.
I have also spent some time on the original intake. I could have gone the Eldelbrock route and saved a few hours of media blasting and EGR/heat coil cover fabrication, but I like the look of the original intake.
As you can see, I fabricated a cover for the EGR and carburetor heat coil out of 18 gauge sheet metal. I made up a couple of templates (left) and then made some rough cuts on the sheet metal. I then used a grinder to get the proper shape.
A close up of the two covers.
This EGR bolt goes into the manifold at an angle, so I made a custom collar to fill in the gap and spread the load across the cover.
